Local people’s willingness to contribute towards water quality improvement in Offin River in Atwima Mponua District, Ghana.

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Date
NOVEMBER 2016
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Abstract
This study investigated local people’s willingness to allocate their household financial resources to help improve the degraded water quality of the Offin River. It also determined the factors that influence their willingness to pay towards the program. Closed ended questionnaire was developed and administered to households in three selected communities within the catchment area of the river to determine both WTP of residents and factors that affect their WTP. Results indicate that majority of respondents have visited the river and believe that improving water quality in the river is an important concern. Respondents were willing to make an average monthly contribution of GHȻ 45.51, per household, to support the improvement program of the Offin River. A multiple regression analysis conducted found factors such as future use of the river, household income, household size and years of residency of respondents, to be important drivers of WTP for the improvement of water quality of the Offin River. Other factors such as distance to the river, level of respondents’ education, occupation and gender, have no influence on respondents WTP. An independent-sample t-test conducted to test the influence of the socio-economic factors on the mean total willingness-to-pay (MTWTP) amount, found age to be the only variable with significant difference between the active and the non-active age groups (active age; M=6.97, SD=5.663, non-active age; M=8.88, SD=5.905; t(147)= -1.987, p=0.049). Based on the results of this study, illegal mining in and around the river need to be curbed and efforts made to dredge the river and also re-plant the trees and vegetation that once provided shade to the river. It is also recommended that decision-makers and environmental managers of the river endeavour to implement educational programs and enforce existing laws by involving the local people and where necessary, make new laws, to help improve the quality of water in the river. Keywords: Offin River, illegal mining, willingness to pay, environmental management, water quality improvement, vegetation restoration.
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A thesis submitted to The Department of Silviculture and Forest Management in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of Master of Philosophy (Natural Resources and Environmental Governance),
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